How Max Keiser Was Betrayed by Ellen Brown

Gary North

Nov. 22, 2010

Ellen Brown's defection to Bernanke's camp on November 20 will create great consternation in the camp of the Greenback faithful. She had seemed like the deliverer of a moribund movement. She delivered it, all right: into the open arms of the Federal Reserve System. "Oh ye prodigal sons -- welcome home!"

Thanks, Ellen.

Of all her naive and enthusiastic followers, no one has been chewed up and spat out more than Max Keiser.

Until I published my initial critique of Ellen Brown's book, Web of Debt, I did not know who Max Keiser was. My critique appeared on Lew Rockwell's site on October 8:

That afternoon, I spoke at the Mises Institute's Seminar. That evening, Lew Rockwell told me that he had received a protest from Mr. Keiser. Mr. Keiser was very upset with my critique. He told Lew to tell me that if I did not appear on his Web program to defend myself, I was "all bark and no bite."

In the battle of the footnotes, I don't back down. So, I told him to tell Mr. Keiser I would debate Ellen Brown on his show, on any topic relating to my criticisms, under any rules he laid down. Rockwell posted this on his blog. I did not see it, because I was at the conference and did not check his site that weekend. Here is their exchange, beginning with his initial email. He addressed it to me.

Gary, email me ASAP to schedule an appearance on the "Keiser Report" to talk about Ellen Brown's book. Not to do so would expose you as all bark, no bite.

Gary told me tonight, when I mentioned the above post to him:

Tell Max Keiser to set the day! All I ask is that Ellen Brown be there to defend her book. He can be the moderator, take sides, do whatever he wants. But she must be there.

Mr. Keiser went public with this here. I only discovered this on November 20, when I did a Google search.

My site is public. Mr. Keiser could have contacted me directly. It's too late now. There is now no reason for me to defend myself. Ellen Brown has proven to be what the Bible describes as a weak reed.

He is now in an embarrassing position. He became her acolyte and her defender against me. He gave her access to his audience, although hers is much larger than his. It will be interesting to see what he does next. Here are a few possibilities.

1. He goes on his show and admits what she has done is wrong. He calls on her to come on his show to defend herself. This would be the honorable thing to do. But it raises a problem. How can he explain away the fact that he had become her instant public defender against my detailed, comprehensive attack on her book?

Will he say that hers was an unpredictable sell-out? He still has to deal with me. Beginning in May 2009, I identified her as a false-flag infiltrator.

She is a left-wing welfare State advocate who wanted to inflate the dollar in order to fund the welfare State. She has now praised Bernanke for doing just that.

She has not switched her fundamental position. She has only said that she now trusts the Federal Reserve to get the job done. She switched on a technicality -- the means of inflating -- not on basic economic policy. But Keiser rejected my critique as intellectually worthless.

I was right. He was wrong. How will he explain this to his devoted viewers? "North was right after all. I got suckered. Call me Max the Rube. I got the shuck put on me by this unprincipled sell-out."

But how did he get suckered? Even the most basic knowledge of free enterprise economics and Austrian School monetary theory would have inoculated him. It was not that she is persuasive. For anyone with the basics of monetary theory, the woman is a joke -- an economic ignoramus. Mr. Keiser's problem is obvious: he was intellectually defenseless. How can he explain this to his viewers?

2. He switches sides along with her. He says he now thinks QE2 is a good policy. He tells his viewers that Ellen Brown has shown the way to prosperity: QE2. Just create digital money and hand it over to the U.S. Treasury.

Problem: he will lose 70% of his followers, who know better.

3. He pretends that she does not exist. "Ellen Brown? Never heard of her." Problem:

4. He pretends that she did not switch sides. He never mentions her again. He assumes that his followers will never hear of her switch. That would mean cheating them. He introduced them to this sell-out, and they will go on thinking that she is reliable, and not just another lawyer.

5. He tells people that what her words clearly say really do not say that at all. This will take some fancy verbal footwork. He can run, but can he hide?

What has now happened to Mr. Keiser is always the threat facing anyone who becomes an acolyte for a self-appointed guru. The guru can sell out the followers at any time. Sheep will make the transition behind the guru. Smart followers won't.

Any guru can go off the deep end without warning. His followers should not be held responsible if they break from him or her. But Ellen Brown was a foul ball from day one. She was a wolf in sheep's clothing. This was the heart of my argument. I wrote 52 articles and 30 responses to prove it. Mr. Keiser presumably read the first 52, since he contacted Rockwell the same day to demand that I defend myself. (He must read very fast, or else he is a fellow who shoots from the hip. People who shoot from the hip risk losing important appendages.)

I no longer have to defend myself. Ellen Brown has demonstrated in full public view that she is exactly what I said she was: a left-wing welfare State promoter of fiat money inflation. She said so in her book. She did not exactly hide this, but she buried it late in her book. I merely quoted her verbatim and added comments.

Max Keiser was a sheep. He followed her like the shepherd she was. Now she has sheared him. He refused to follow the logic of my arguments. Worse, he did not see the logic of hers. She promotes nineteenth-century Populism in every chapter. Populism was always left wing. She is a devotee of Hitler's economics, which was Keynes's economics, which is Bernanke's economics. That was my critique's thesis. Mr. Keiser refused to see it. I was the bad guy. She was the wounded, innocent defender of liberty and sound economics.

Now she has betrayed him and the army of naive, trusting readers who thought she had some understanding of economics. They did not perceive the preposterous nature of Greenbackism, and they lined up behind her. She was going to lead them down the yellow brick road to Oz, where she would cast out the Wizard. Instead, she has become the Wizard's ardent disciple. She has betrayed them all.

Max Kaiser did what so many gullible acolytes have done in the past. He tried to shoot the messenger. Now the innocent maiden, so rudely insulted, has shot him in the back.

Ellen Brown did not have a lick of sense to start with. She has no sense now. She has never understood economics. She has just proved it.

Even I am astounded. I knew the woman was an economic ignoramus, and I proved this in considerable detail. But I did not imagine her to be this utterly clueless. This woman is the equivalent of the president of the Internationasl Vegetarian Society who then becomes a cannibal.

My advice: when you sign up to follow anyone or anything, check the ethics, the logic, and the footnotes. When you get sucked in by a flake, and you publicly promote the flake, you will look like a flake when he or she finally flakes out. Don't wind up like Max Keiser.